State v. Belknap

• Decision Date: 13 March 1920
• Citation: 221 S.W. 39
• Parties: STATE v. BELKNAP.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

221 S.W. 39

STATE v. BELKNAP.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

March 13, 1920.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Jackson County; E. E. Porterfield, Judge.

T. M. Belknap was convicted of statutory rape on a female child of the age of nine years, and he appeals. Affirmed.

On November 17, 1917, an information was filed in the criminal court of Jackson county, Mo., in which defendant was charged with the crime of statutory rape, alleged to have been committed in the month of August, 1917, at the county of Jackson and state of Missouri, in and upon one Elsie Spears, a female child of the age of nine years. On November 17, 1917, defendant was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty. On December 10, 1917, defendant was granted a change of venue to division 2 of the criminal court aforesaid. On December 13, 1917, he was found guilty by a jury and his punishment assessed at 32 years in the penitentiary. On January 29, 1918, defendant was granted a new trial. Said cause again came on for trial on February 11, 1918, at which time the court discharged the jurors theretofore impaneled, by reason of one of the jurors being in a drunken condition, and a new panel was ordered. On February 13, 1918, appellant was put upon his trial, before a legally constituted jury, and on February 14, 1918, the jury returned into court the following verdict:

"We, the jury, find the defendant, T. M. Belknap, guilty of rape as charged in the information and assess his punishment at 38 years in the state penitentiary."

State's Evidence.

It appears from respondent's evidence that before coming to Kansas City, Mo., the prosecuting witness, Elsie Spears, and her mother, Rose Spears, had lived in the states of Georgia and Florida. The mother came to Kansas City April 1, 1917, and took up her residence at Ninth and Cherry streets. The prosecutrix came later, in the month of June 1917, making the trip to Kansas City alone. When the latter arrived in Kansas City, the mother was living at 520 East Eleventh street. The evidence of respondent tends to show that Mrs. Spears first met appellant in June, 1017, while he was rooming at 520 East Eleventh street; that, after the prosecutrix arrived, Mrs. Spears moved from Eleventh street to Eighth and Cherry, at the suggestion of appellant; that at the Eleventh street address the prosecutrix and her mother occupied one room, and appellant a different room in the same rooming house; that when they moved to Eighth and Cherry appellant, Mrs. Spears, and the prosecutrix lived in the same room and all three occupied the same bed; that during this time Mrs. Spears was employed at the Silver Laundry, about four blocks from her home; that she went to work at 7 a. m. and quit at 5 p. m.; that during said period appellant was engaged in the real estate business, which he conducted from said residence; that during the day the prosecutrix was at home in the room aforesaid, and was looked after by appellant; that appellant agreed with the mother to look after the girl during the day and to take care of her while the mother was absent. Mrs. Spears usually carried her lunch with her to the laundry, but one day the daughter brought her lunch, and started back home alone. She got lost, and one' of the employés at the laundry took her home. When Mrs. Spears returned home about 5 p. m., appellant told her the little girl had been out all the afternoon; that he didn't know where she had been; that she had returned shortly before the mother. Appellant said the girl told him one of the men who brought her lame had carried her to the river, gave her a dime, had wronged her in some way, and brought her home. The mother thereupon proposed to call a doctor and ascertain what was the trouble, but was advised by appel: ant that it was not necessary to have a doctor. lie told the mother that it would ruin her reputation, and his also, to have anything like that come up. Three or four days after this the girl commenced Complaining of trouble with her private organs. The mother insisted on calling a doctor, but appellant said he could treat and cure her; that defendant then undertook to treat her. He said he had been under a doctor and went with the doctor several months; that he had learned a good deal about medicine and could cure her all right without any trouble. He treated the child by rubbing some black looking medicine on her bowels, and some yellow looking stuff on her private parts. He discouraged her from calling a doctor.

After the child developed above trouble, these parties continued to live together for about two weeks, with appellant treating her during that time. Mrs. Spears then moved to 1408 Charlotte street, and called Dr. Ruhl, for whom she had previously nursed a few patients; she being a practical, but not a graduate nurse. Dr. Ruhl saw the child only once and informed the mother at that time that the child had a venereal disease. Dr. Ruhl said she should be taken to the hospital at once. The child was then taken to the Mercy Hospital about the first of August, where she remained up to the time of trial.

The child brought the mother her lunch, as above stated, about two weeks before the former was taken to the hospital.

Mrs. Spears testified that she and her husband had not lived together since three weeks before the prosecutrix was born; that the latter was ten years old the 4th day of November, 1917.

On cross-examination Mrs. Spears testified that she came to Kansas City from Lakenan, Fla., with a Mr. and Mrs. Reeder, who thereafter went on to Sioux Falls, S. D.; that her husband's name was Ernest Spears; that she was granted a divorce from him in Thomas county, Ga.; that she lived with Mr. and Mrs. Reeder on Cherry street in Kansas City, where they occupied two rooms; thereafter, these parties moved to 520 East Eleventh street in Kansas City, where they had two rooms; that thereafter Mrs. Reeder went to South Dakota, Mr. Reeder following her in about two weeks, during which time she and the child lived with Mr. Reeder, he having one room and she another; that up to the time the child brought her lunch to the laundry she had observed nothing unusual, and neither she nor the child had received anything except the kindest treatment from the appellant; that when she arrived home after 5 o'clock she saw the appellant and the child in the room together; after coming home and being informed by appellant that some one had assaulted her child, she did not inquire of the superintendent of the laundry company who he had sent home with the child when she went to work the next morning; that she subsequently inquired of said superintendent as to the identity of the man who had taken the child home from the laundry, and he said it was a young man that was not working; that she lived with appellant for about two weeks after the alleged assault, and they had no falling out at that time; that appellant called on her after she moved to 1408 Charlotte street, and on one afternoon he went over to Mercy Hospital to see the child; that appellant wrote her some letters after he went to Omaha, Neb., which was about four weeks after the little girl had gone to Mercy Hospital; that up to that time she never thought appellant had attacked her child and considered him her good friend; that she was first told that appellant had assaulted the child by a nurse from Mercy Hospital who informed her of that fact in the month of September, 1917.

Mrs. Spears further testified that the child had been suffering from gonorrhea; that she lived with appellant for over a month, had intercourse with him, and had no disease, nor did she observe that he had any such trouble; that appellant treated the child with Mansfield's Capalaris and Trask's Ointment.

Prosecuting witness, testified that she was ten years old; that she came to Kansas City from the state of Georgia, in June, 1917; that she came alone in the care of the conductor of the train; that she first saw appellant when she came to Kansas City; that she, her mother, and appellant moved to Cherry street, occupied one room, and all slept in the same bed; that her mother would go to work at the laundry and be gone all day, appellant remaining with her.

The child testified: That she was in the room aforesaid, lying crossways on the bed. That appellant took off her panties, unbuttoned his trousers, lay on top of her, and, to use her own expression, "he put something in me." Thereafter, he told her that if she told her mother he would shoot her. That appellant performed the same act three times a day for more than one day. Then he put some medicine into her with his fingers. That he used a syringe upon her. That he would lock the door to the room when he performed these acts upon her. That when she was taken to Mercy Hospital she told Miss Corbett, a nurse, what the appellant had done to her.

Dr. Ruhl testified: That Mrs. Rose Spears nursed two cases for him in the spring or summer of 1917. That later on he was called to examine the prosecutrix. He found the child suffering from a fever and inflamed and infected condition of the vagina; it being swollen, bruised, and contused. The external lips of the vagina were swollen, enlarged, inflamed, and bruised, and a discharge was coming from the vagina. He further found that the hymen was ruptured. From his examination it was his opinion that the condition aforesaid had existed for several days. That he thought he made his examination about the first of August, 1917. That he could not state that the child had gonorrhea, but that she had infected vaginitis. That he could not tell whether or not the child was infected with gonorrhea without a microscopic examination, and that it was not his impression that she was suffering from gonorrhea. The doctor gave it as his opinion that a man infected with gonorrhea might communicate it to one individual with whom he had intercourse and not to another; that if the person with whom intercourse was...